books.google.com - The Oxford Companion to Food by Alan Davidson, first published in 1999, became, almost overnight, an immense success, winning prizes and accolades around the world. Its combination of serious food history, culinary expertise, and entertaining serendipity, with each page offering an infinity of perspectives,...https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Oxford_Companion_to_Food.html?id=JTr-ouCbL2AC&utm_source=gb-gplus-shareThe Oxford Companion to Food

The Oxford Companion to Food

The Oxford Companion to Food by Alan Davidson, first published in 1999, became, almost overnight, an immense success, winning prizes and accolades around the world. Its combination of serious food history, culinary expertise, and entertaining serendipity, with each page offering an infinity of perspectives, was recognized as unique. The study of food and food history is a new discipline, but one that has developed exponentially in the last twenty years. There are now university departments, international societies, learned journals, and a wide-ranging literature exploring the meaning of food in the daily lives of people around the world, and seeking to introduce food and the process of nourishment into our understanding of almost every compartment of human life, whether politics, high culture, street life, agriculture, or life and death issues such as conflict and war. The great quality of this Companion is the way it includes both an exhaustive catalogue of the foods that nourish humankind - whether they be fruit from tropical forests, mosses scraped from adamantine granite in Siberian wastes, or body parts such as eyeballs and testicles - and a richly allusive commentary on the culture of food, whether expressed in literature and cookery books, or as dishes peculiar to a country or community. The new edition has not sought to dim the brilliance of Davidson's prose. Rather, it has updated to keep ahead of a fast-moving area, and has taken the opportunity to alert readers to new avenues in food studies.

The Oxford Companion to Food

User Review - Dawn Lowe-Wincentsen - Book Verdict

From particular things to eat to cuisine, techniques, and ingredients, this tome delivers everything food. Most ingredient entries are organized by common rather than scientific names. The ... Read full review

The Oxford companion to food

User Review - Not Available - Book Verdict

This outstanding culinary reference is destined to become a classic, and Davidson, the book's editor and the author of many of its entries, deserves the eternal gratitude of researchers everywhere ... Read full review

About the author (2006)

AUTHOR Alan Davidson was a distinguished author and publisher, and one of the world's best-known writers on fish and fish cookery. In 1975 he retired early from the diplomatic serivice - after serving in, among other places, Washington, Egypt, Tunisia, and Laos, where he was British Ambassador - to pursue a fruitful second career as a food historian and food writer extraordinaire. Among his popular books are North Atlantic Seafood and Mediterrranean Seafood. In 2003, shortly before his death, he was awarded the Erasmus Prize for his contribution to European culture. EDITOR Tom Jaine is an independent writer and publisher, specializing in food and food history. He is the author of numerous books, including Cooking in the Country, Making Bread at Home, and Traditional Country House Cooking. He frequently writes for The Times, The Guardian, the Sunday Telegraph, the Evening Standard, and many magazines and journals. He was editor of The Good Food Guide from 1989 to 1994, has presented 'The Food Programme' on Radio 4, and has participated in discussions of food on radio and television. CONSULTANT EDITOR Jane Davidson underpinned the author, her husband, during the twenty years he devoted to the first edition of this book. She was also translated and edited Dumas on Food with him. She was a founding partner of Petits Propos Culinaire, the innovative journal on food history, writing many of the book reviews, and a director of Prospect Books Ltd. She is trustee of the Sophie Coe Memorial Trust, and patron of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery. RESEARCH DIRECTOR Helen Saberi was Alan Davidson's personal assistant, and worked very closely with him on the first edition of the Companion, as contributor, researcher, fact-checker, and proofreader. She is the author of Noshe Djan: Afghan Food and Cookery, and co-author with Alan Davidson of Trifle.